


Turning

by Fyre



Category: Cabaret (1972)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-31
Updated: 2013-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:32:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fyre/pseuds/Fyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world turns, what can you do but turn along with it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Turning

**Author's Note:**

> My first and only Cabaret fic, done for Yuletide 2008. It was an emotionally tough film/musical to write from, ergo, the only fic.

What is a man to do when his world is turned on its head?

Weimar was a beautiful creature while it lasted, a shooting star of brilliance, bright, dazzling and catching every eye. But even shooting stars vanish, and when something bigger, bolder and more dazzling enters the sky, it would be impossible not to look at it. That is what the change felt like.

A wise man wipes the paint from his face, the rouge from his cheeks and raises his glass to the Nationalist Party. Who would not? Who would not, if they wish to leave a room with the same face that they entered with?

You see, the world is turning, turning, always turning.

If you let them use you and yours as you see fit, then what cause have they to take what little you have? Indulge them and entertain and they will let you play as you wish, until they have a reason to stop you.

Of course, there will always come a point when they wish you to stop.

Little Sally, she was swept away when the elections came. My pretty little spatz with her eternal legs and her voice. Until that man came, she was a treat that many paid a pretty penny for, but after she went, and after others drifted away, well, one cannot display birds when all you have is an empty cage. The gild slowly faded and there was no more song.

So the glass was raised, and the brave soldiers who came to me remembered my little jokes and my little treats I saved for them. They would always remember, if you treated them well, even if it was in a way that would make your dear mother quite roll in her grave. Shame is something we on the stage cannot afford to hold on to and must destroy when we have a chance. It is a trinket, of little use.

If you must kiss boots to earn a meal, it is what you must do. Boots. Asses. Pricks.

As long as you don't mind what their pleasure is, our boys with the nationalsozialismus can be generous and if you give them a little of your time, they will return it on you.

The elections turned all things in their favour, one vote at a time, and that little man took the lead, little Herr Adolf. He surprised many, especially other little men, who had never reached beyond their little house in their little towns with their little wives and little dicks.

We who know people know who to watch, and we watched and we saw that Herr Adolf was a man who knew what he wanted, and he would do what he wanted to get it. We saw that he would march all the way to the gates of Hell if that was his wish, and we saw that no one would stop him. And no one wished to. We needed someone to lead where our brave land had faltered.

However, unlike many politicians, my dears, he knew the importance of art. The Bauhaus was his desire, with that beauty that was wholly German, but it didn't wish to be his, feisty little thing. Anyone else would dance like my Sally did, shaking a teasing ass and dipping breasts for attention, but not them. They slipped through his fingers and were gone, but they did not have voice enough to stop him.

He knew how to make things look, how to make things sound, and how to make people listen to what they thought they wanted to hear. And listen they did, and cried aloud to him, with him, loving him, worshipping him and believing every little thing that came from his lips. Perhaps he had no rouge or glitter or girls with trombones, but he was the MC who had a stage far larger than we Weimar masters ever had.

He changed the world in a few short years and we were swept along.

Germany for the Germans was our cry. No one but we of the pure blood and we with the rights to this land and this money and this world that had been stripped from us! A chorus with no conductor, but one finds it is better to sing along than to be thrown from the choir. So many are, Jew, gypsy, queer, non-German, and you see them fall by the wayside and you smile that you aren't among them.

You see, if you know how to act and how to look and how to smile when others are screaming, why would they think anything of you? A mask does not have to be made of paint or wood or cloth. Say the right lines from an unwritten script and the world will keep turning.

When the bombs started to fall, the ones who lacked the skill to perform were swept away.

You are allowed to doubt and disbelieve, you see, as long as it doesn't come to the ears of the dear boys of the S.S. If you question tales of vanishing families, if you didn't shatter one of the windows or chase out the Jews from your town, if you asked why there were no more Hungarians, you should know what your mistake was.

Keep your truths tucked away, a secret affair that no one needs to know of. Or if you are called in, do what you must. On your knees if it is required. Some of the boys in the S.S. keep their little secrets too, hot and demanding and bruising secrets.

A word to the wise, my dears, make sure the uniform is safely put aside.

A swastika marked into the buttocks can be quite a thing to explain.

You do what you must, you see. You laugh with them, cry with them, and if you must, you die with them. With them or against them, you do what you must. What other choice do we have, my dears?


End file.
